


bite the dust

by xiiaeo



Series: svtlou [2]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, Guns, M/M, Open Ending, Zombie Apocalypse, attempt at suicide due to infected reasons, background seoksoon and implied jihan, have i mentioned that woncheol are married i just think we need to think about that for a moment, hidden threat, however, no one dies I promise, question mark, the violence you would expect from a zombie au, tlou inspired, woncheol are married, xiiaeo writing angst? who knew
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:47:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27662234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xiiaeo/pseuds/xiiaeo
Summary: "Why won't you just let me die?"
Relationships: Choi Seungcheol | S.Coups/Jeon Wonwoo
Series: svtlou [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2041378
Comments: 17
Kudos: 29





	bite the dust

**Author's Note:**

> this story is a next in what appears to be a series?? i don't know this has happened, but i would strongly advise that you read [buckle up, buttercup](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26718745) before reading this, as this is set BEFORE and then DURING bub and who wouldn't want to read sexy seoksoon being bonkers in the apocalypse?
> 
> warnings as mentioned in the tags: a character does try to shoot themselves in this story and it is part of the main emotional conflict but it is due to zombie related reasons AND THERE IS NO CHARACTER DEATH! I PROMISE!
> 
> sorry for any mistakes!!
> 
> Another One bites the Dust - Queen ☆ [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/5vdp5UmvTsnMEMESIF2Ym7?si=FEhCeHApRsagFdss1Tun4A) ☆ [Youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY0WxgSXdEE&ab_channel=QueenOfficial)

A sigh fell from Wonwoo, heavy, tired, and he pulled his headphones down to set them to the side, silent. He hadn’t fired a single shot since they set up camp here god knows how long ago, and it didn’t seem as though he would be doing so any time soon. Still, he kept peering down his scope, dialed in, trailing Charlie from window to window, sometimes travelling ahead out of sheer boredom, and he felt a crick settling deep into his neck with his prone position.

“Want to swap out?”

Now, it wasn’t that Wonwoo wasn’t grateful for the offer, hip bones digging into the floor and forearms practically one with the concrete, nor was it that he lacked faith in Seungcheol’s capabilities with a sniper, because he was certainly more than proficient, but it was simply for his own curiosity that he politely declined, though he did incite more conversation as hearing Seungcheol’s voice after such a long bout of silence made it all the more charming, even after years of being woken up by that sweet cadence, “I’m good, just bored in all honesty.”

Seungcheol’s words were wrapped in a slight chuckle, a hearty sound that did not in any way allude to his usual tipsy giggles, “I didn’t expect you to say that on this expedition, out of all of them.”

“I didn’t think I’d be saying it either,” Wonwoo concurred, still watching the other group strategically making their way through the rooms and up the floors, still yet to see the need to fire shots of his own, not radioed for assistance. 

“How many do you clock?”

Wonwoo didn’t reply immediately although he was already certain of his answer. He gave it one last look, zoomed his scope in as far as it could be zoomed in, and raked his sights across the floors again, slowly, but he still couldn’t find anything that was a cause for concern aside from the glare of the sun that sought to blind him directly, “None.”

“None?”

“Not a single one.”

“They’ve taken a few out,” Seungcheol informed, and Wonwoo turned away from his scope to look towards the object of his affection, to paint himself a memory of Seungcheol stood in the rays of the golden hour, sunlight tickling through his hair, hands clasped around an assault rifle ready to fire, to protect, unabashedly at ease.

It wasn’t like Charlie needed his help right now, anyway. 

“They could all be at the other side of the building,” Wonwoo began to reason, though they both knew that the chances of that were incredibly slim, “But other than that, the building looks pretty abandoned in all aspects.”

Silence settled over them again, pensive this time, and after trailing his gaze down Seungcheol’s form, catching sight of the golden band around his finger with a smile, Wonwoo went back to staring down his scope. He had expected there to be a littering of shells around him by now, ejected from the chamber before the bolt hammered the next one into place, and that’s why they had collectively put this expedition on the back burner for so long; they were waiting until he acquired substantial ear protection before firing the rifle so many times.

And yet he hadn’t pulled the trigger once.

Something wasn’t right, he could feel it in the pit of his stomach, a sick, swirling sense that something was about to go wrong, that he would blink and half of their friends would be wiped out in his momentary lapse of attention, and no matter how long he stayed there for, waiting, watching, he still didn’t see anything despite Charlie being halfway up the building already. They were all safe and sound, radioing in to Seungcheol every time they breached a new floor, and now that Wonwoo could hear their dialogue, everything just made even less sense.

They were supposed to be sweeping the building, clearing out any zombies that had wandered in or got locked behind closed doors and scavenging for supplies, not reporting that they had found nothing of use, that all the drawers were empty, and that they had only come across the odd walker who was swiftly taken down. Wonwoo was supposed to be providing cover fire for them, not baking alive in the light of the sun, sweat beading down his neck while Seungcheol stood to the side as a loyal guard to watch his six, and then it hit him.

“Fuck.”

“What?” Seungcheol whipped around in alarm, ready to defend, and appeared to be only puzzled when Wonwoo rose to his feet and pointed down at his post.

“Take over for a second,” Wonwoo stretched a hand out for the binoculars that hung around Seungcheol’s neck, handed them without a second thought so that he could go on to confirm what he feared to be the case.

There were two buildings, two skyscrapers, and one was infested and one was not, or so the story went. Earlier settlers of their town had scoured one for supplies a year back, wiped all the floors and found enough scraps to keep the community going, so heading back out this way, a few days hike from home, in the hopes of replenishing their supplies now that they had an ever growing number of mouths to feed, seemed only rational. It wasn’t a debate to be had, a cause to barter over, and there was a roster drawn up immediately before the team set off as soon as they were well equipped, Wonwoo and Seungcheol a very willing and very vital part of it. 

Strategy, however, was not their role in this endeavour. They went where they were assigned to go, making their way up the crumbling staircase of the dilapidated building with such ease that Wonwoo never even thought to conceive of what he had now come to realise, biting his lip, “We’re in the wrong building.”

“What?”

Wonwoo could feel Seungcheol’s eyes on him when he walked around to peer as far East as he could, in the farthest window, practically hanging out of it, and he didn’t even care that Seungcheol wasn’t looking down the scope, wasn’t ready to provide cover fire for Charlie, because they weren’t the ones who needed protecting now, “We’re in the wrong building. The TV station shouldn’t be on this side of us.”

A warm presence was at his back in an instant, a close proximity that he didn’t mind despite the heat, and he held the binoculars to the side for Seungcheol to see what he was seeing, to affirm the worst for himself as he rested a hand at Wonwoo’s waist out of familiar habit, “Fuck, you’re right. That’s why you weren’t clocking any.”

“Yeah,” Wonwoo breathed out, a little shaky, and Seungcheol noticed, arm snaking further around Wonwoo’s waist to pull him into a loose back hug of sorts.

“Hey, we made it up here in one piece, so we can make it back down in one piece too.”

“Two pieces,” Wonwoo said over his shoulder, just to be playfully pedantic, and Seungcheol responded by pressing a quick kiss to his lips, smiling, before he headed back over to his bag and the walkie-talkie to inform Charlie of the major fuck up that someone had made, daylight wasted and Wonwoo and Seungcheol’s own lives now at risk while they were to head back to ground level. 

Wonwoo paid no mind to the argumentative tone that Seungcheol took on while communicating their blunder, the others clearly not believing themselves capable of such a mistake, and he went about packing his gear into his rucksack before rising to his feet with it on his back, sniper slung over one shoulder and pistol in hand, mind racing. They had only spotted a few infected on their way up and swiftly dealt with them without much fuss, keeping their trained silence until they reached their lookout point, but there were so many doors they never opened and so many winding corridors they didn’t look down that could be swarming with them by now.

They’d slipped through the cracks on the way up, Wonwoo reckoned, himself and Seungcheol, but there was no chance they could be so lucky on the way down, surely?

“They’re gonna finish their sweep of that floor and then head back down to meet us at the entrance,” Seungcheol announced, and Wonwoo focused through his own thoughts to see that Seungcheol was ready to move as he was, rucksack on his back and assault rifle in hand, only a slight difference from Wonwoo’s pistol.

“Okay,” Wonwoo murmured, didn’t really mean for it to come out that softly, and Seungcheol knew that too, flashing a reassuring smile before he spoke.

“Come on, I’ll lead the way.”

Wonwoo fell into step with him naturally, almost desperately, suddenly very aware of how big this building was, how many bodies it could be harbouring, “Who was in charge of coordinating this expedition?”

“You mean who fucked up and sent us to the wrong building?”

Wonwoo grinned despite himself, both of their voices quiet, barely above whispers as they made their way back down the corridors they had walked along to get here, “Yeah.”

There was a moment of silence in which they both went rigid, the sound of footsteps overhead, or perhaps just something blowing in a draft, and they continued on slower, quieter, “You know, I actually couldn’t tell you, which is weird because I usually know the people who get the leader roles for these things.”

“Yeah, I do too, but I can’t think of who it was at all.”

“Maybe the heat is getting to us,” Seungcheol reasoned, a slight shrug at his shoulders, and Wonwoo internally groaned; he did not need a reminder of the way his vest was plastered to his back, rucksack glued to it.

“Maybe.”

Nothing but their own disturbances to the environment gained Wonwoo’s attention, the soles of their shoes peeling off the floor only to melt back down again, their breaths coming out shallow and controlled, quiet, and the very slight ruffle of fabric with every step, accompanied by the soft clink of the zips on their rucksacks. The loudest thing was his heartbeat, his blood rushing through his veins to swirl around his ears and make his head throb, and he couldn’t remember the last time he felt quite this powerless, this _scared._

Seungcheol clearly noticed the very small lag in Wonwoo as he followed behind, as he stopped walking when they reached the door to the stairwell to turn around, forever steady gaze meeting Wonwoo’s wide eyes, “What’s wrong?”

Wonwoo had long since shed his defences around Seungcheol, trusted Seungcheol more than anyone to see him like this, vulnerable, nearly quivering, bringing a hand to press it over his heart as though that would quell its harsh beating, “I just have a really bad feeling.”

“We’ll be fine,” Seungcheol said in a tone so sincere it sounded like a promise, and he took Wonwoo’s hand from where it lay over his heart, pressing a kiss to the backs of his knuckles, lips touching gold, “We always are.”

Now, there was definitely a list somewhere of ‘Things Not to Do in the Corridor of a Zombie Infested Skyscraper’ and ‘Kiss Your Husband Out in the Open’ was probably on there somewhere, but Wonwoo couldn’t care less. He slid his fingers out of Seungcheol’s grip and settled his palms to cradle Seungcheol’s jaw, met halfway in a tender, rather timid expression of their long held affection for one another, though it quickly morphed into something deeper and more fervent.

Soonyoung’s strange ideology of refusing to kiss Seokmin in times of danger had never struck a chord with Wonwoo, as drowning himself in Seungcheol was his only escape from this world and its endless screams regardless of the time of day or their place of passion. If those monsters were going to consume him, he would rather die with his last action having been to kiss the love of his life as though he was trying to relinquish his life himself, to give it to Seungcheol to do as he pleased with it.

Seungcheol shared that sentiment, his hands at Wonwoo’s hips, his body moving to press Wonwoo gently against the door that they should’ve already walked through by now, but there was no rush, Charlie would take a while getting back down their building too, after all, and Wonwoo didn’t mind the contents of his rucksack digging into the flesh of his back or the sound of the sniper lightly clacking against the wall where it was still slung over his shoulder, but he did clock how loud their breaths were when they separated, foreheads resting together.

“Better?” Seungcheol asked, cheek in his tone but always with an underlying sense of comfort and familiarity that Wonwoo couldn’t hope to ever kindle with anyone else, and didn’t ever want to.

“Better,” Wonwoo concurred, aware that he sounded a tad in awe over a simple kiss, but he truly did feel better, heart racing pleasantly and mind momentarily turned to mush, potential terrors replaced with a very real Seungcheol.

“Come on,” Seungcheol said, and stepped back so that Wonwoo could open the door he was still leaning against, but not without giving his husband one last peck on the lips that bloomed a smile there.

The door opened with a creak so loud it may as well have been a gunshot, but Wonwoo shook his nerves off again in the moment of sonorous silence that followed, them remaining still while they listened for movement that never came. They crept down the five floors that they had crept up before there was a break in the stairwell, rubble that had fallen from how dilapidated this building was, and this was the point where they had to go across this floor to access a different set of stairs that would see them all the way to the ground, to safety. 

It was routine for them to scope out one side each as the walked, Wonwoo taking the left while Seungcheol took the right, and the halt in Seungcheol’s footsteps made Wonwoo freeze to the spot, dread instantly sapping away the warm reprieve that Seungcheol’s lips had given him. He turned to see that Seungcheol had two fingers raised, fingers that he then used to mimic the action of walking, little digits kicking away in silence, two walkers to the right. 

Two was fine, Wonwoo convinced himself. Two of them appearing out of the woodwork was normal, so normal, and the pair of them granted the walking corpses their eternal rest with a sickening ease that Wonwoo never enjoyed and would very much like to never have learned at all, the gurgles of the undead making his stomach churn and features scrunch in discomfort. 

They continued along the corridor, darker at this side of the building, the golden light of the sun struggling to shine through the cracks in the plaster for them to light their way, and Wonwoo did his best to scour the darkness, to glean whatever little insights he could from reflections of the shattered glass that danced along moss coated walls in barely there illuminations, but he caught sight of something, or some _one,_ familiar, and then walked straight into an immovable object, Seungcheol.

The furrow in his brows was evident when he whispered, “You good?”

“Yeah,” Wonwoo trailed off, squinting at what appeared to be a photograph, “Why’d you stop?”

“There's a clicker around the corner, through the doorframe ahead.”

“Spores?”

“Doesn’t seem to be.”

“Cover me for a sec,” Wonwoo requested, and trod as lightly as possible over to the photograph where a beaming smile greeted him, one that he could recognise anywhere for how bright it was, and when he got closer, when he picked the photograph up and held it in front of his face, he could see another cheesy grin in the background, rivaling the first.

What was a picture of Seokmin and Soonyoung doing here?

There was alarm in Seungcheol’s clipped whisper when it came, “Wonwoo.”

The clicker was in the room now, a few paces away from Seungcheol, skin pale and fungal, and it sneered in his direction despite its blindness, finely attuned to sound, as though it had caught a whiff of his whisper. The rolling clicks that came from the back of its throat were horribly unnerving, almost more so than the sight of the creature itself, an abhorrent creation of humanity and nature twisted into death, but they were rather easy to deal with at this earlier stage of their mutation, so long as one could quickly dispel the natural response to scream on sight.

Wonwoo scooped a rock up from where he was still crouched, photograph in hand, and threw it across the room. The clicker trailed after it like a rabid dog to a bone, attracted to sound, and Seungcheol was swift in drawing a knife and striding after it for a silent kill, one Wonwoo turned away from but heard the sickening squelch of nonetheless, followed by the gentle thud of Seungcheol lowering the husk of a human to the ground to rest.

The photograph. Wonwoo ran his fingers over the glossy surface, well-kept though a bit tattered around the edges, and he flipped it over out of banal curiosity, expecting to find the date this was taken or where they were at the time. He certainly was not expecting to be met with words written in an angry scrawl, thick lines that wound around in a vengeance. 

**_‘They’re next.’_ **

Next?

“What’s that?” Seungcheol inquired, dropping to a squat next to Wonwoo, blood covered knife held so casually in hand that Wonwoo didn’t even pay it any mind.

“I don’t know. I found it here,” Wonwoo offered it to Seungcheol and halfheartedly pointed to the ground. Soonyoung was on this expedition, the trigger happy member of Charlie who was undoubtedly the one leading the cohort through the skyscraper with callous ease when they thought it was still swarming with danger, but Seokmin wasn’t. Seokmin was back in town as far as Wonwoo was aware, and Soonyoung hadn’t been in _this_ skyscraper, the one himself and Seungcheol were in, as of today, “They’ve never been here before, have they?”

“Couldn’t tell you for sure, but not to my memory, no,” Seungcheol affirmed what Wonwoo already believed, and the stern expression that overcame his features when his eyes raked over the words were not comforting in the slightest, though it was familiar once upon a time.

They had been separated at the start of all this, when the outbreak happened, for no fault of their own. They were simply at different parts in the city and that may as well have put them continents apart when the chaos erupted, world torn to shreds, pulled inside out and spat back together in a slapdash pile of bricks and metal, with the odd uprooted tree. That time they spent apart was the longest they had gone without each other since they met, almost an entire year, and Wonwoo was never quite as hopeful as he liked to let on to his fellow survivors, had mourned for Seungcheol on more than one occasion, so when he met him again, faced first with the barrel of a gun, golden band on one of the fingers curled around the hilt, before he then peered beyond cool steel and into familiar round eyes, he did not care to hear the reason for his husband holding him at gunpoint and simply threw himself at him, knocking him to the ground in a bone crushing embrace that was swiftly returned.

It came after the high of their reunion, after Seungcheol had said that couldn’t keep pretending that he was still the same person he was since Wonwoo last saw him, and after Wonwoo had slapped him upside the head, lovingly, of course, and told him to stop being so ridiculous. None of them were the same as they were back then, unaware of what lay ahead, and none of them could ever go back to being that way, not completely. His words didn’t reach Seungcheol, however, and he learned that Seungcheol had done some things he didn’t think he could be forgiven for, had fallen in with a bad group of survivors and couldn’t find himself a way out for the longest time, and then, when he finally took his chances at breaking away from the group, he ran into Wonwoo again, a person he thought was dead and a person he definitely didn’t feel like he deserved to be with anymore.

Working through all of that took a long time and to say that they had resolved it completely would be a lie, but if there’s anything Wonwoo had always had an inhuman abundance for, it was patience. Being around the others helped a lot, Wonwoo was quick to notice, and he started to see the Seungcheol he fell in love with again, bit by bit, like memories being patched together over an apparition, but there would always be that weight to his soul now, and all Wonwoo could do was be there when Seungcheol wanted to talk about how heavy it made his heart feel and share some of his own darkness too; no one was left unchanged and impervious to the callous nature of this new age. 

The expression Seungcheol wore when talking about those time was the same as it was now as he stared at the writing on the back of the photograph as though he could deduce who the threat came from by the penmanship, however, if that was the case, he would have told Wonwoo as much, Wonwoo was certain. 

“You think it actually means anything?” Wonwoo asked gently, accepting the photograph when Seungcheol offered it back to him as though discarding it from memory.

“I hope not.”

“That’s not very reassuring,” Wonwoo uttered in somewhat of a joking tone, met only by that same stern stare that now seemed to be permanently etched into Seungcheol’s face.

“I’m not going to lie to you. It could be something, could be nothing. All we can do is wait and see.”

Wonwoo nodded, making a very small acknowledgement of the statements before Seungcheol announced them as leaving, leading them through the door that the clicker had come through and back down the corridor they had come down on their way in. Wonwoo would be lying if he said he could focus on his surroundings as much as he would like too when he could see the tension in Seungcheol’s broad shoulders, skin shining in the dull light with sweat. Interpreting Seungcheol’s thoughts based on body language alone was something Wonwoo had learned how to do over the years, not by trying, but simply by existing alongside him for so long, able to detect changes in his morale as a sort of second nature, but all he could gather from this sudden shift in countenance was that Seungcheol was worried for Seokmin and Soonyoung, and perhaps had experienced something similar before when he was in that group, a threat to their members, potentially.

Or maybe he had issued such a threat himself, who knew, Wonwoo would not expel that possibility entirely, not yet.

They came to a natural stop at the door to the stairwell, the one that would get them down the rest of the floors so they could rendezvous with Charlie, and Wonwoo quirked a brow as his thoughts dissolved into confusion when Seungcheol didn’t immediately open the door, a silent question that was soon answered by Seungcheol’s incessant rattling of the doorknob, and then his voice.

“It’s locked.”

“What?”

“It’s locked,” Seungcheol repeated, and stepped aside when Wonwoo reached to try for himself, “I promise you it’s locked.”

“How?” Wonwoo demanded to know, panic starting to simmer within, as he tried to push with his full weight while twisting the doorknob in a distressed grip, ”It wasn’t locked before.”

“No, and that photo wasn’t there before, either. We would’ve seen it.”

“Someone locked us in?”

“Calm down,” Seungcheol ushered, voice so low that it made Wonwoo bring a hand up to his own mouth in horror, eyes wide. He had completely let slip the universal law of staying quiet in his new sense of urgency, and he noticed Seungcheol’s eyes soften around the edges, just a tad, “I’m sure we can find another way out.”

Wonwoo caught himself before he suggested simply shooting the lock. Infested building, swarming with walkers. A building which they had brought a whole squadron and a sniper team to clear out. A loud noise to signal their location to every single thing in the vicinity, be it alive or dead, was the last thing they needed, Wonwoo concluded, and he let his parted lips slip shut again, rooted to the spot.

“We’ve done this before,” Seungcheol prompted, kind eyes, familiar eyes, staring at Wonwoo, making him focus through his bleary haze, “We’ve gone into buildings and not known what was in them many more times than we have gone in fully aware of what we are up against.”

“We have,” Wonwoo had to agree, if not for the sake of honesty then just to make himself believe the truth, “But not a building this big, not with just the two of us.”

“First time for everything,” Seungcheol smiled, boxy and gummy, and despite the fear fueled adrenaline that was brewing in Wonwoo’s veins, he felt his heart swell at the sight. Seungcheol could put on a strong act as much as he wanted, convince himself and everyone else that he was fine, that he wasn’t shackled to the past and that he was able to lead them all into the future, but Wonwoo could see that he wasn’t fully persuaded by his own lie, jaw still set tight when the smile dropped from his face, and Wonwoo didn’t fall for it fully either, but he could be fooled enough to put one foot in front of the other, and that was all that mattered.

He urged a similar expression to come to his own lips, to provide Seungcheol with that same reassurance despite how futile it felt to try, and he managed a small smile of sorts, lips pressed together and kissed soon after, a small peck that made the guise reach his eyes, “Lead the way.”

Seungcheol did. It was unknown territory from here on out, neither of them having the time to let their minds wander when Seungcheol opened that first door into a new room, and these parts of the building looked the same as the rest, like someone had set off explosives in all four corners of each room at the same time, contents scattered everywhere, charred, mouldy, furniture being taken over my moss and climbing plants, the smell of mildew ever present in the air, but they had seen, and smelled, worse.

They came across another stairwell, door not locked but stairs entirely dilapidated, out of use unless they fancied falling face first onto taunting concrete, and the more they explored the winding corridors, finding no other walkers, the more Wonwoo could feel the hairs on the back of his nape standing on edge, hands clammy. If they couldn’t find a way down from inside the building then they would have to start looking _outside,_ for fire escapes, ladders, poles,anything they could potentially grab hold of or shimmy along, and Wonwoo wasn’t afraid of heights, or of dying, but after coming this far it would be a mockery of his efforts to live to die in such a manner, plummeting to the ground.

“Think it’s worth a shot?” Seungcheol asked, a crease between his brows that Wonwoo wanted to reach to smooth out, a clenched jaw that would give him a headache later that Wonwoo would coddle, but Wonwoo didn’t say anything about those. 

Instead, he peered down the elevator shaft that Seungcheol was precariously leaning into, greeted by nothing but darkness and dusty sunlight streaming in from the floor below, “How would we do it?”

“I’ll lower you down and then you catch me?”

“And then we both splat at the bottom?” Wonwoo rolled his eyes and got down to his knees for purchase, reaching as far down as he could to see how big the gap between the elevator doors was. His hands found rust and oil, came back black and slimy, “I think we could probably climb down.”

“Probably is good enough for me,” Seungcheol shrugged and joined Wonwoo on the floor, though Wonwoo held an arm out in front of his chest before he could begin his descent, “What?”

“We don’t know what’s down there,” Wonwoo began, tone low and words slow, unease chipping away at his insides, “There could be loads of walkers and then I wouldn’t be able to pull you back up fast enough.”

“Or there could be nothing,” Seungcheol countered, and then backtracked, “Or there could be _someone.”_

“Don’t say that,” Wonwoo set his sniper down and shrugged his rucksack off, turning his back to the darkness to take Seungcheol’s hand. It was highly likely that there was _someone_ in the building with them _somewhere_ but Wonwoo didn’t want to dwell on it, had more than enough on his mind with this building being a hotspot for infection, and he wasn’t sure how much fear his heart could handle, “Hold my hand. I'll lean over to see what's down there before we try to get down.”

Seungcheol didn’t say anything, just gave a curt nod and held Wonwoo by the hand, and the wrist, while Wonwoo lowered himself into the elevator shaft head first, faith entirely in Seungcheol to bear his weight. He wasn’t light and Seungcheol wasn’t weak; if anything this ordeal scared him the least out of the silent horrors surrounding them. 

“Can you see yet?”

“A little further,” Wonwoo requested in an accidental echo, using his free hand to brace on the metal framework around the open elevator doors of the floor below, looking up at Seungcheol to see him hanging dangerously into the darkness too, “Be careful.”

Seungcheol gave a half smile, lazily confident, wholeheartedly loving, but there was still a faraway look to his eyes, “I’ve got you, don’t worry.”

Wonwoo wasn’t worried about that. He was more worried that something or _someone_ could sneak up on Seungcheol while they were both preoccupied and defenceless like this, so he hurried them up as much as he could. In the end, he wasn’t quite sure how they managed to _not_ fall all the way to their eventual destination, but he could finally see into the next floor, Seungcheol now holding his wrist and an ankle. 

Sunlight blinded his upside down eyes, making him squint, but there were no moving shadows, “Looks clear.”

“Do you want me to pull you up or let you down?”

“Let me down,” Wonwoo quickly decided to save Seungcheol the effort, and it was much scarier to have his life in his own hands than it was to trust Seungcheol with it. The grip around his ankle went first so he could walk his leg around to the side, and then, when he had his feet in an okay position, Seungcheol let go of his wrist too. 

He fell, inevitably, hands slippy and orientated all the wrong ways, landing spine first, back bowed over the ledge. He parted his lips in a silent scream, air stolen from him, momentarily paralysed. His legs dangled down, ceiling danced in his vision, arms spread wide and palms pressed desperately into the sides of the opening. Seungcheol’s alarmed tone echoed all the way to the ground floor, sending a spike of fear through Wonwoo’s core - it was too loud. He managed to push himself, arms straining, torso whining with the effort of dragging his legs out of the hole, and he did what felt like the heaviest exhale of relief when he was sprawled there in one piece, heart racing.

“You okay?” Seungcheol asked, much quieter, clearly perturbed by his own noise level earlier.

“Yeah,” Wonwoo affirmed, and as though it wasn’t clear from the strained nature of his response, “Just winded.”

“Don’t scare me like that,” Seungcheol complained, and Wonwoo managed a small smile.

Only for a second, then he went back to being a slave to his surroundings, hyper aware of every little noise behind him as he accepted his sniper and rucksack when Seungcheol lowered them down, the rattle of god knows what, the creaking of doors blowing in drafts, footsteps dragging in the distance.

Seungcheol’s descent was done with much more finesse, but then again, he didn’t go down face first. Wonwoo turned to head into the unknown, stopped by a gentle grip at his wrist, one that only didn’t make him jump out of his skin because he knew it was Seungcheol, and because he could see that they were in no immediate danger, “What?”

“You sure you’re okay?”

“Physically, I would rather not be walking right now,” Wonwoo admitted, spine feeling like it could snap simply from standing up, and he knew there was going to be pretty bruising blooming as they spoke, “But it’s alright, really. Mentally and emotionally, though, I _really_ don’t want to be in this building.”

Seungcheol glanced away for a second, absorbing the words, collecting his thoughts before sharing them, “Yeah, I don’t like it in here either.”

That did nothing to calm Wonwoo’s haywire mind and Seungcheol knew that, which was probably why he deliberated on whether to say it or not. Their conversation would sound amusing to anyone else who saw them, for who wouldn’t want to get out of a zombie infested building, but it wasn’t that that was having them treading even more lightly than normal, it was the fear that they were being watched by living eyes, hunted for sport.

Messing up on a smaller expedition was understandable. Doing something like turning up for the wrong shift or going to the wrong lookout point had happened on more than one occasion, but getting two _skyscrapers_ mixed up was really something else. Maybe it was just a mistake and they were both thinking too much into it, but the more they put one foot in front of the other in this decrepit corpse of a building, the more they had to wonder if this had been done on purpose, but if so, then why?

Seungcheol blew out a breath, “Let’s not hang around. Come on.”

“Yeah,” Wonwoo agreed, and blinked a moment of serenity when Seungcheol pecked him on the lips.

There was nothing new down here, just more rubble overcome with greenery, skeletons slumped in piles of cobwebs. If anything, this floor felt a little bit more preserved than the others they had traversed so far today, and Wonwoo couldn’t tell whether that was a good sign or a bad sign and the pit of dread remained in his core nonetheless. A fizzle of static had him swing to face its sound, to face Seungcheol, and he returned to scoping out the left as they walked while Seungcheol responded to Charlie who said that they had returned to ground level.

At least all of them had made it out safely, Soonyoung included.

They followed what they thought was the route to the stairwell, the one they had been locked out of on the floor above, and found that a lot of the doors along the way were locked too, each handle they tried causing more and more distress. When they did find one that opened, it was the sound the floor made when they trod inside that put Wonwoo on edge, a dull whine of sorts, one that such a material definitely should not be making, and the very slight give to the surface like the moulding of wet sand was not at all a welcome feeling beneath their feet, so they were quick to hurry through to the door at the other side, the one that was upside down and open while the other two to the left were shut.

Upside down?

“Wonwoo!”

Seungcheol’s shout was louder than Wonwoo’s own involuntary squawk of confusion blended into pain as he was swept off his feet, hoisted into the air by a rope at the ankle, ensnared, but it wasn’t as loud as the screams that followed loud bangs and a swirl of dust.

The other two doors had opened, and zombies were pouring in.

Time blanketed Wonwoo with merciful slow motion, just enough for him to realise that he wasn’t dangling that high up, that the top of his head was only a few inches above the ground, and that he could push against it with his hands. He did. It didn’t help. Pounding filled his head, a blur to his vision. His sniper clattered to the floor, slipping off his shoulder, and gunfire came from Seungcheol, lighting up the rotten corpses that charged for Wonwoo with animalistic bloodlust. 

The weight of his inventory pulled him down impossibly more, rope tighter, digging into his flesh in razorlike pinches to hug the bone - he could afford to lose a foot, not his life. Pistol still in hand, he spun himself to aim at them, the upside down legion of the undead drooling over him, and it seemed like he could manage, a spark of hope shooting through the blood rushing to fill his head, but a pistol only held so much ammo, and his aim while swinging in place, disoriented, was only as good as he could hope for, disgraceful for a sniper, really.

Bullets fired, he switched from trying to protect himself to trying to protect Seungcheol, to give Seungcheol a reprieve so that he could reload his own gun, save himself, at least. There were too many of them swarming in and there would be many more attracted to all the noise. It would be a miracle if one of them could make it out alive, never mind both, never mind Wonwoo who was limply hanging from the ceiling.

“You’re gonna get yourself killed!” Seungcheol yelled over the chaos, well aware that if he hadn’t been picking off the ones charging at Wonwoo, now fumbling with reloading, then Wonwoo would’ve been feasted on.

Wonwoo just smiled, though he supposed maybe it was a frown to Seungcheol, considering that he was upside down. He thought it strange how he could think about such a trivial thing at such a crucial moment, but he quickly came to appreciate that time had been kind to him, that he should’ve trusted his gut instincts earlier when he felt dread take root in his stomach, and that his grace period of slow motion action had come to an end.

He was useless, hanging there, spinning around regardless of his own desires, and he could kick and scream as much as he wanted to when they closed in on him, but nothing would come of it, just another bad memory for Seungcheol - not that this wouldn’t be bad, but at least he wouldn’t have to remember Wonwoo’s screams amongst that of this battery.

Seungcheol was only one man, after all, what could he really do in the face of all this?

Pain spread through Wonwoo’s side, harsh and relentless, brute force that tore through every layer of flesh and tissue, and he couldn’t help but to scream then, low and guttural. It was gone as soon as it came, another body dropping to the floor next to him, dead eyes staring at him, bullet clean through the skull, and Wonwoo couldn’t process everything that happened next, world too fast without time holding his hand. 

High pitched ringing filled his ears. His head hung heavy with blood. Black specks danced in his vision. Seokmin and Soonyoung’s smiles caught his eyes, the photo on the ground, carelessly dropped when he was hoisted from his place, and it was now coated with droplets of blood, whose, Wonwoo couldn’t really tell. His own, perhaps, the wetness at his face either sweat or blood of a mixture of both that ran down his body to drip through his hair onto the glossy finish.

Seungcheol was next to him suddenly, motion untracked, forgotten, not even seen, Wonwoo had no idea, all he knew was that Seungcheol was defending him even though it was too late, and that it was going to get him killed. 

As much of a sap as Seungcheol was, Wonwoo wasn’t going to let them die together. 

He shoved a foot in death’s door, refusing to let it close him out of the world of the living just yet, and clenched his teeth to roll his body up, abdomen screaming, and maybe he was screaming too, drowned out by the roar of the zombies that had been lured to the sound of gunfire, and he aimed and shot what must’ve been one of the last of his bullets at the rope suspending him. 

The drop to the floor wasn’t far but it was painful, but pain could wait. Wonwoo didn’t hazard a look at Seungcheol’s expression, didn’t think he would be able to muster up the strength he had found now to push himself to his feet and scrape his sniper off the floor if he saw the storm of emotions in Seungcheol’s eyes, the unshed tears that would undoubtedly be there. 

He couldn’t fire at them from this close, but he could hammer the butt of the gun into their skulls, could kick their legs out from under them and stomp on their skulls, a sickening resistance followed by a crack, inaudible but deafening. For how long he did that, swinging, kicking, elbowing, slashing a dagger, standing back to back with Seungcheol for the pair of them to twirl around in some sort of twisted dance, he didn’t know, had lost all sense of time and place and self amidst the bloodshed, but the one thing he did know was that it was Seungcheol who cradled him when he fell to his knees, concern ripping through his tone.

Wonwoo heard it, dull and muffled, quiet against the ringing of his mind and the throbbing at his temples. He looked up at Seungcheol, though it would be more correct to say Seungcheol made him do so, titled his chin up in the gentlest of grips when he really shouldn’t have his hands anywhere near Wonwoo’s mouth. In fact, he shouldn’t be near Wonwoo at all, and Wonwoo tried to shove him off, far too weak to do so, and he saw the hurt flash across Seungcheol’s features as the tiniest of twitches at his eyes, the miniscule angling of his brows, such small motions that no one else would even notice, but Wonwoo knew, knew all too well.

“You need to leave,” Wonwoo managed to get out, gaze zooming back out to be vacant, blinking heavily, sometimes granted the ability to see while his speech slurred and poisonous fire raked through his insides. He had a hand clutched over the wound above his hip and hadn't even noticed until now, “There’ll be more coming.”

Seungcheol didn’t say anything, or maybe he did, and Wonwoo was left alone, or maybe he wasn’t. He was lagging in and out of existence, a foggy entity, and the next time his vision came back without his eyes immediately rolling into the back of his head he found himself on his feet, walking, barely, with his pistol in his hand. Gaining his consciousness made him sway, made them sway, and he became aware that he was being supported by Seungcheol, that Seungcheol was carrying all of his own gear and Wonwoo’s as well as basically Wonwoo himself, and Wonwoo wanted to protest to it, to tell Seungcheol to just leave him here and escape, but despite being unable to get the words out, he was glad that he could at least see Seungcheol to the exit himself this way. 

The pistol in his hand had been reloaded, Seungcheol must’ve told him so, as he wouldn’t be able to discern the difference himself in his current state. Whether he used it or not henceforth, he wasn’t entirely sure. Gunfire rained in his mind, echoes of the pasts or new and blazing their way to the future, or both, and suddenly he was running from the screams, actually running, not being dragged by Seungcheol but _dragging_ Seungcheol through a door and slamming it to a close behind them.

It was Seungcheol who barricaded the door while Wonwoo sunk to his knees on the floor again, alert, suddenly buzzed with adrenaline working on overtime, a pistol in hand, and a wound at his side.

A bite.

“Charlie?” Seungcheol desperately called into the walkie-talkie, still piling things in front of the door, as though a desk lamp would do much if the table and vending machine couldn’t, “Fucking come _in!_ We need help, _now.”_

He kept trying, but Wonwoo zoned him out, zoned all of it out, let his heart resound until it beat out of his ears, the steel barrel of his pistol shining in his eyes. There was no way out of this room for them, not if Charlie didn’t get there in time, couldn’t cut through the horde, and normally that would be okay, they could wait it out, go hungry, thirsty, try their luck again in a few days, but they didn’t have that luxury now.

Wonwoo’s fingers twitched where they lay curled around the wound at his side, over his bloodsoaked vest, and he forced himself to focus, to peel the garment up, the bandage with it, and to accept what had happened. Teeth marks marred his flesh in bold indentations, blood seeping through where molars had sunk, and if Seungcheol hadn’t shot it off as fast as he did, which still wasn’t fast enough, Wonwoo would’ve been missing a chunk of his side for certain.

If they stayed in here, trapped, together, Wonwoo would turn and attack Seungcheol. It was a no brainer, really, what Wonwoo was about to do, and he smiled small at the pun in his thoughts, kneeling there, covered in his own blood with a gun in his hands, Seungcheol howling down the line for assistance, and he brought the barrel to point under his jaw, trigger finger trembling dangerously.

He hesitated.

Not for any profound reason, there wasn’t anything he had left to say or to do before he died, but he just didn’t think that it would happen here and now, hadn’t prepared for it, didn’t want it despite how serene it had felt to let go earlier, when he was still upside down, when his life slipped away for a moment, and after that, when he was safely in Seungcheol’s arms. It was so much easier to give in to the disease spreading through his body than it was to fight it, to let himself die rather than to take his own life, but he didn’t want to live the life of a deadman and he grabbed at his own wrist to steady his shaking hand, blunt nails digging crescent moons into the flesh.

He pulled the trigger.

Or maybe he didn’t.

Pain shot through his head, not stemming from the jaw, but from his crown, and he found himself with his spine pressed into exposed concrete, vision spinning, a heavy weight on top of him, warm and familiar and _angry,_ “What the _fuck_ are you doing?!”

“I don’t want to turn,” Wonwoo easily admitted, undisguised panic in his words, wincing when the pain stemming from his hand registered over all the other wounds he already had, knuckles split where Seungcheol had slammed the pistol into the ground, crushing Wonwoo’s hand under it, “You’re hurting me.”

_“I’m_ hurting _you?”_ Seungcheol almost scoffed, incredulous, an unhinged sort of laughter lacing his tone in disbelief, “You just tried to fucking kill yourself in front of me!”

“I don’t want to turn! We’re stuck in here and I’ll attack you!”

“You know I can take care of myself!”

“Well you thought I could too!” Wonwoo regretted the words right after they scratched their way out of his throat, tears brimming in his eyes as Seungcheol’s face fell and guilt started to present itself there. It wasn’t his fault, not at all, but Wonwoo didn’t have time to convince him of that. He had to seize this moment, had to use the last of his strength to haul Seungcheol off with his knees, with his legs, with his arms and elbows and any means possible as he scrambled away to once again aim at himself.

Only to once again be barrelled into, hot pain spreading through his side, his wound, the bite, at the force of the impact. The pistol fell out of his grasp as the tears slipped from his eyes, as Seungcheol once again overpowered him, kept him against the concrete and scooped the pistol up himself to toss it to the other side of the room where a sob then fell from Wonwoo, “Please.”

Seungcheol said something too soft for Wonwoo to hear while bile and fear rose up in his throat, desperation making him struggle despite knowing it was futile, clawing at where Seungcheol was pinning him down by the shoulders, trying to buck him off where he straddled Wonwoo over the hips, “I don’t want to turn.”

It was never about whether Seungcheol could take care of himself or not, trapped in this room with an infected Wonwoo, and Seungcheol knew that, he always had. They had talked long ago about what they would do in this situation, as everyone else did at least once, more often a lot more than once, and they had decided that they didn’t want to turn, didn’t want to become the things they despised. Seungcheol hadn’t even hesitated to agree with Wonwoo back then, when Wonwoo said he would rather dig the barrel of his own gun into his skull and blow his brains out rather than become a mindless monster, so why? Why wouldn’t he let Wonwoo do it? He wasn’t capable of killing Wonwoo himself, Wonwoo was well aware of that, so why then, would he not let Wonwoo take care of himself?

“I don’t want you to die,” Seungcheol uttered, softly again, and Wonwoo only heard it this time because he was searching for an answer in Seungcheol’s features and hadn’t realised he had spoken aloud. Seungcheol laughed, nervous, not a pleasant sound, like a deranged man at his wits end, “That’s selfish of me, isn’t it?”

“I’m going to die,” Wonwoo insisted, ignoring the break in his own voice at the words, impervious to the tears that landed on his cheeks from above, “But I don’t have to turn. I don’t want to turn, Seungcheol, _please_ don't let me turn.”

“I can’t kill you.”

“Give me the gun. I’ll do it.”

Seungcheol shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut, pressing Wonwoo into the ground more when he tried to escape again, “I can’t do that either. I can’t let you kill yourself.”

“I am _going_ to _die,”_ Wonwoo promised, the certainty in his words scaring himself, his defiance to life entirely foreign to him, and he shuddered violently, adrenaline surging and crashing, blood still soaking through his clothes. He gave up trying to move, limbs heavy and aching, pain becoming white hot the more time went on, felt at his ankle, at his side, in his head and neck and his racing heart, and all he could do was yell his frustrations at the one forcefully tethering him to this world, resentful tears at his eyes, “Why won’t you just let me die?”

“Because I love you!” Seungcheol almost wailed, noise entirely too loud for Wonwoo now that he wasn’t in an elevated state of being, coming back down to reality, but he could brace against the irritation in Seungcheol’s tone with his own, “Why can’t you understand that? Could you sit here and watch me shoot myself?”

Wonwoo’s response came as a growl, “I would shoot you myself if that’s what you wanted!”

_“Bullshit!”_

“Give me the gun and we’ll fucking see!”

Harsh banging on the door reached them, sapped the anger out of them in an instant to replace it with a fear they were far too familiar with, but then voices followed suit, “Whiskey! Foxtrot! You in there?”

“We are,” Seungcheol called to the sound of their code names after a stunned second, jumping to his feet in record time to go and move the barricade when the members of Charlie remarked that they couldn’t get the door open, and Wonwoo just lay there, maybe for a second, maybe for a minute, feeling utterly spent, like he was functioning on borrowed time.

Time he had borrowed for the sole purpose of getting Seungcheol to safety now, which he had done, there was no need to be here now. 

The gun.

He let his head loll to the side and spotted it immediately, then raked his gaze back to where Seungcheol and their friends were making a joint effort to move the vending machine out of the way - they were preoccupied enough. 

Sitting up was hard, standing was near impossible, and Wonwoo found himself pulling his limp form along the floor like those crawlers, zombies who had lost their legs one way or another and ran solely on their desire to cause death, so, in that instance, Wonwoo was no different, really, and if he wasn’t fast enough then there would soon be no discrepancies at all between himself and the undead.

It was that desperation that allowed him to stand and fall the last few paces to his pistol, to claw at it with no strength behind his bloody knuckles, and when he finally picked it up, finally hooked his finger back around the trigger, Soonyoung’s voice shot through the silence, ecstatic stare burning straight into Wonwoo, “Oh I’m so glad you’re safe.”

Wonwoo gave one last sob cloaked in a chuckle of sorts, as far gone into madness as he believed one could be, and he let the pistol clatter back to the ground, followed swiftly by his own dead weight.

Silence came again, though this time absolute.

━ᕕ━

“You have to let Doc see him, Seungcheol, it could be something serious.”

“It’s just a cold or something, I’m sure.”

Jeonghan’s sharp tone came again, maybe, “In summer?”

“He just needs rest.”

“If you say so.”

━ᕕ━

“He’s still not better?”

Seungcheol sighed, sounding far away, near the door, perhaps, “I’m afraid not. It’s probably best if you don’t see him, it could be contagious.”

“What about you then?” Soonyoung asked, genuinely concerned.

“I’m taking precautions, don’t worry.”

Shackles clinked when Wonwoo rolled further into the darkness.

━ᕕ━

“Seungcheol! I brought the doctor, open the damn door!”

“He doesn’t need to see the doctor!” Seungcheol demanded, and Wonwoo blinked bleary eyes open for what felt like the first time in his life, world entirely too bright and unforgiving, to the sight of Seungcheol holding their bedroom door closed as though his life depended on it, “Please leave!”

Jeonghan argued back, “You can’t let him die in there!”

“He isn’t going to die!” Seungcheol responded, maybe a bit too forceful, and whipped his head around so fast when Wonwoo coughed that it’s a wonder his neck didn’t snap, “Wonwoo?”

“Seungcheol?”

_“Finally,”_ Jeonghan barged in, exasperated, but Wonwoo lost sight of him entirely when nothing but Seungcheol filled his vision, a warm weight at his side. Jeonghan carried on speaking but was entirely ignored by Seungcheol and unheard by Wonwoo who couldn’t make sense of the words over his confusion and his desperate attempts to scrape an answer to Seungcheol’s simple question together.

“How do you feel?”

“Dead,” Wonwoo eventually managed, voice horribly hoarse, throat dry and scratchy, “Am I dead?”

“You’re not dead,” Seungcheol informed, and Wonwoo noticed that there were silent tears running down his face, ones that Wonwoo tried to reach for, wanted to wipe away, but all the strength he could gather only let him raise a shaking hand to hover it above the bed sheets before Seungcheol encased it in his own.

“Not dead _yet,”_ Jeonghan remarked, disapproval evident in his tone and on his features when Wonwoo spared him a curious glance, “When was the last time he ate anything?”

Seungcheol’s silence was loud enough.

The doctor cut in, “Drank anything?”

“I gave him water whenever he could drink it, but it wasn’t a lot.”

Wonwoo felt like he was dead as they all talked over him while he lay there, motionless, blinking vacantly, trying to make sense of what was happening, how he ended up here, what happened to cause such a fuss in their bedroom and why he ached _everywhere._

Hands were on him soon enough, caring hands that placed him under professional scrutiny as he combed through his own mind to knit his frazzled memories together, and it was seeing Seungcheol looking absolutely _terrified_ as the doctor inspected him that helped him to remember.

The bite.

Wonwoo looked to the doctor, “How long has it been…?”

“I’m not entirely sure how long you’ve been unwell for since Seungcheol wouldn’t let anyone see you, but you got back from the city six days ago.”

“Six days…?” Wonwoo repeated, brows furrowed, thinking far too hard for someone who had just regained consciousness, and it bloomed a sharp pain in his head that made him wince.

The doctor hummed, jotting some things down while moving to check on Wonwoo’s ankle, “Six days. You appear to be _alright_ considering that you haven’t had any proper medical treatment since your emergency treatment at the time. You’ve got a high fever but everything else seems to be fine, so we’ll just have to keep an eye on you.”

Six days doesn’t make sense.

A kind chuckle came from the doctor, telling Wonwoo that his thoughts had been unknowingly vocalised, “It is strange when time escapes you, but I’ll leave you and Seungcheol alone so he can fill you in. I’m sure you’re a bit overwhelmed right now.”

“Thank you, Doc,” Jeonghan smiled, performing a polite bow, countenance flipping completely when the doctor left the room, landing cold eyes on where Seungcheol had resumed his position sat next to the bed, “After you two have talked, you and I are going to have some words about why you’ve got him chained to this bed.”

Seungcheol looked petrified, meeting Jeonghan’s eyes almost desperately to explain himself, but Jeonghan turned and left before he even got the chance, leaving Wonwoo and Seungcheol alone, once again.

“Am I really not dead?” Wonwoo asked, confused beyond belief.

“You’re not dead, no,” Seungcheol smiled, small, “Thankfully.”

“How?” Wonwoo croaked, eyes slowly following Seungcheol’s hands on their path to collect a glass of water and present it to Wonwoo’s lips. Naturally, Wonwoo tried to sit up to take a sip but found himself horribly incapable of doing so, with the most he could manage being to peel his shoulder blades off the mattress by digging his elbows into it, head hanging limply back from the focused effort.

Seungcheol helped him shift up the bed enough to prop himself against the pillows, still mostly prone, and then the glass was presented to him again and he gratefully parted his lips, uncaring of the water that ran down his cheek, alert to the way it was gently wiped away by calloused hands. A few seconds of silence passed between them, no words exchanged, only the sound of Wonwoo’s parched breathing and the soft clink of the glass being set back down breaking the reverie, and then Seungcheol spoke, and he sounded lost and scared and oh so alone, “I don’t know how you’re alive at all. You were bitten and you should be dead but you’re not, and I’m so glad that you’re not and this is what I wanted but I am _so_ sorry.”

“Sorry?” Wonwoo furrowed his brows, soon relaxing the expression when it pained him to sustain it, not all there yet, thoughts still scattered.

“I couldn’t tell them,” Seungcheol continued, elaborating further when he evidently saw the confused haze clouding Wonwoo’s eyes, “You passed out when they rescued us from that building. I thought you’d dropped dead.”

The small twist of Seungcheol’s features at the memory drove a nail straight through Wonwoo’s heart, but it was the way his lips were curled up, bittersweet, that really hammered it in, “Soonyoung said you were still breathing and I carried you out to the truck and I didn’t tell anyone about the bite, I just said you fell on something and it cut your side.”

Wonwoo’s eyes widened a fraction at that. Seungcheol could’ve put them all in danger, _did_ put them _all_ in danger as far as he was concerned at the time, just because he selfishly wanted to keep Wonwoo alive. It was coming back to Wonwoo now, why Seungcheol was apologising, why it seemed as though he would repent for anything right here and now if Wonwoo commanded it of him. He remembered them spitting fire at each other, blows exchanged, blood spilled, and his knuckles throbbed at the memory, phantom weight of the pistol in his hand, of Seungcheol’s weight forcing him into the concrete as though that would keep him from going six feet under.

But apparently, it had done.

“I should be dead,” Wonwoo murmured, the one thing he was sure of as he scoured his own memories. How he felt about what Seungcheol had done, to him and to the others, risking their lives as a collective for the sake of one, he hadn’t decided yet. Happy wasn’t the word and grateful didn’t fit either, and the more he dwelled, ignored whatever it was that Seungcheol was saying back to him, too soft to be heard, the more he deemed that anger was appropriate, though he was too muddled and frail to express it.

“Wonwoo?”

“Hm?”

“Lost you there for a second,” Seungcheol chuckled, airy and nervous.

“You kept me alive,” Wonwoo stated, supposing it was meant to be a question but it did not come out as one, head leaning to one side so that he could stare into Seungcheol’s eyes, “I told you I don’t want to turn.”

“You didn’t!” Seungcheol exclaimed, quietly, timidly, as though afraid of shattering an illusion he knew he was wrapped in, “You know it doesn’t take this long to turn. People can last a day at most, if they’re determined enough.”

“Determined,” Wonwoo repeated in a derisive scoff that turned into a cough and had Seungcheol launching to give him the water again, which he waved away, “I’m not determined. I was ready to die and you wouldn’t let me.”

“Wonwoo,” Seungcheol began in a signature tone, one that meant he didn’t want to talk about whatever topic Wonwoo had just touched upon now.

“Don’t you ‘Wonwoo’ me, we promised. We promised that we wouldn’t let each other turn if it came down to it.”

“No one knows what they’re actually going to do in a situation like that,” Seungcheol attempted to reason but Wonwoo narrowed his eyes at him before sighing and turning away, finding the bleak ceiling more deserving of his attention.

“I can’t argue with you now, I don’t have the energy.”

Seungcheol’s tone was almost pleading when it came, far too familiar, traced back through a myriad of sparkling memories that Wonwoo didn’t want to see through their skirmish over his pistol, “I don’t want to argue with you. I want to talk.”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Wonwoo ignored the man in his peripheral, “I want to talk to Soonyoung.”

Seungcheol’s silence demanded that Wonwoo direct another steely stare at him, a sinking feeling presenting itself at his stomach. Maybe Seungcheol hadn’t heard, “I want to talk to Soonyoung.”

“I can’t let you.”

_“Let_ me?” Wonwoo almost shrieked, would’ve done if not for his haggard state, and he scoffed again, the air huffing out of his lungs painfully, “That’s not for you to decide.”

Seungcheol wouldn’t meet his gaze, was twiddling with his thumbs where his hands lay at his lap, and Wonwoo wanted to slap this meek nature out of him and slap some sense _into_ him but he acknowledged that it was futile when he tried to move, envisioning himself sliding to sit at the edge of the bed to drag his own carcass to Soonyoung’s door himself, but he was thwarted at the first instance of motion. 

There was a thick band of metal around his ankle, a dull grip that blended in with the bone deep ache Wonwoo felt all over his body, not just at his wounds, and the chain rattled at the shifting of his foot, making him stare blankly at Seungcheol for a second, Seungcheol who would still not meet his gaze.

“You’re fucking insane.”

That got his attention, round eyes snapping to meet Wonwoo’s own, shining in a picture of innocence that made Wonwoo’s stomach churn, “Wonwoo—”

“Don’t. Just don’t even start,” Wonwoo held a hand up and settled himself back down, definitely not moving anytime soon, and he brought that same hand to cover his eyes and squeeze at his temples, attempting to stave off his anger even if only in the smallest capacity, “What were you going to do if I didn’t wake up? Keep me here forever? Let me rot?”

“I—”

“What if I had turned?” Wonwoo continued, aware that he was starting to sound hysterical and entirely not caring, “What then? Would you have kept me as your little zombie pet, chained to our bed?”

“Of course not!”

“Oh, so then you’d finally shoot me? _After_ I had turned, against my will?”

“No!”

“What then, Seungcheol, _what_ are you planning on doing with me?” Wonwoo almost begged to know, wincing when the pounding in his head started up again, not allowing Seungcheol to say anything about it, to pity him, “You’re just dragging this out for me. It’s heartless.”

“You’re not going to turn,” Seungcheol argued, and Wonwoo kept his hand where it was, over his eyes, so that Seungcheol couldn’t see the tears that threatened to spill, “You would’ve turned by now.”

“You don’t know that,” Wonwoo responded quietly, shaking his head, “You wouldn’t have me chained to our fucking bed if you believed that.”

“Maybe you’re immune.”

Wonwoo took his tongue between his teeth at that, biting down on it, almost smiling maniacally, so astounded by what he had just heard that he had to ensure he was still alive, even if he really wasn’t. His head was starting to spin as he dissected his own situation, kept captive by his own husband, kept alive, kept as a walking time bomb, unknowing of how long it would be before he turned into one of those snarling piles of flesh and ripped someone’s spinal cord out, and yet Seungcheol tried to spark hope where there was no room for it, “Get out.”

He heard an intake of breath, followed by a pause and a gentle exhalation, before the sound of boots thudding across the wooden floorboards receded and the door clicked to a close. 

Burying his face into his hands, turning his back to the absence of Seungcheol, chain rattling as he did so, Wonwoo began to shake, and to cry, tears running along the golden band nestled against his knuckle.

━ᕕ━

“I don’t think what he did was right,” Jeonghan nodded along with his own words as though he was trying to coerce Wonwoo into believing them, “But I do think he is right about that.”

Wonwoo sighed, drained, and picked at the scabs on his knuckles until Jeonghan gave his leg a gentle nudge from where he was perched at the foot of the bed, “I don’t think it’s right, no matter who suggested it.”

It had been three weeks since Wonwoo was bitten and he had only just started to be able to move around again by himself, not bedbound but still under a state of house arrest that he had imposed on himself. Despite that, he still found himself in bed most of the time, leaning back against the headboard, lost in thought or listening to Jeonghan’s, and occasionally Seungcheol’s, if he had the energy to try. 

He was starting to get better and it was scaring him. The doctor said his fever was practically gone, his appetite was back, and his only remaining ailment was how fatigued he felt from the motions of everyday life, even though his now consisted of pottering around the house to sit in various positions and ponder his own existence. 

Seungcheol still had work to do, couldn’t stay and look after Wonwoo forever, and Wonwoo didn’t want him to, or maybe he did. Conflicted wasn’t an emotion Wonwoo could ever recall feeling, undecided, sure, but so conflicted to the point where he actually began to contemplate their marriage, a decision he had made for life and had never harboured the slightest doubt about, was an entirely new feeling, an unwelcome one. 

He was sitting there now, talking to Jeonghan, living and breathing and experiencing every checkpoint on the spectrum of human emotion as he forgot what the outside world looked like, encased in his own spiralling mind, thanks to Seungcheol. He was _alive_ thanks to Seungcheol, but he had also been put through hell by Seungcheol, forced to live in fear that every moment would be his last, that his sanity would suddenly slip away and that he would attack those around him before he even knew what he was doing.

What was more painful than that, the knowledge of his own impending death, was that he _knew_ that Seungcheol wasn’t doing it to be cruel or to cause Wonwoo any suffering. He had done, whether he would acknowledge that or not, whether Wonwoo would accept any apologies made or not, but Wonwoo knew it came from a place of fear on Seungcheol’s part too; he didn’t want to lose Wonwoo.

Wonwoo had saved him, or so he had said, back when they were reunited. He had completely lost sight of who he was, or what the point of any of this baseless fighting and surviving was for, and if he hadn’t met Wonwoo again he didn’t know what would’ve become of him. Even without that, Wonwoo knew why it was hard for Seungcheol to let go, even if he hadn’t had to fight Wonwoo to keep him alive, even if they hadn’t screamed bloody murder at each other in the midst of their brawl, because he couldn’t imagine losing Seungcheol either.

Seungcheol, who he had spent over half a decade legally bonded to, hearts entwined long before that. Seungcheol, who managed to make Wonwoo feel small in the most comforting of ways despite their height difference and competitive levels of brawn. Seungcheol, who, through thick and thin, be that the pair of them whining about upcoming exams or spraying bullets into a horde, had been there for Wonwoo as a shoulder to lean on, a place to come home to at the end of the day.

What caused Wonwoo the most pain wasn’t the slowly healing bite at his side, or the ripped skin from the razor lined rope at his ankle, or any of the other peeling scabs or bruised bones, but it was the fact that he didn’t know if he could ever consider Seungcheol home again.

“It’s not like we’re keeping it a secret for malicious reasons,” Jeonghan prompted, stealing Wonwoo from his reeling mind, “You know how people are in this world. If word got out, people might think they’re immune too, or they might regret killing someone before they could turn because maybe they wouldn’t have turned if they had waited, but they didn’t know that.”

“I understand not telling _everyone,”_ Wonwoo had to agree. Regardless of Jeonghan’s reasoning, he had seen firsthand the horrors that _people_ had inflicted onto this new age, never mind the zombies, and he had been granted plenty of time to consider every possible outcome of his current predicament which was, in and of itself, a torturous ordeal that he would’ve rather not had to endure, at the mercy of his own logic and creativity run amok. Keeping prisoners wasn’t uncommon for settlements, especially bigger ones such as theirs who found themselves the targets of theft far more often, but for the most part, Wonwoo believed, things were resolved peacefully, if not with a few loaded threats and raised firearms; that was how they did things here, anyway.

Wonwoo wasn’t naive enough to ignore what they had stumbled across on more than one occasion, walkers chained into place, allowed to walk around at that restricted length, poked and laughed at like circus animals, and he _hoped_ that they had been walkers prior to being chained up but hadn’t stuck around long enough to find out. If word of immunity spread, news of a possible cure naturally following suit, prisoners could be used as tests - let them all get bitten and see if any survive, and if they do, experiment on them. Why did they get to live when everyone else died? 

Wonwoo asked himself that every day.

“But…?” Jeonghan had a brow raised when Wonwoo focused on him, clearly for the rest of Wonwoo’s sentence, supplying the first half when Wonwoo blinked vacantly at him, having forgotten what he said, “You understand not telling everyone _but…?”_

“Can’t we at least tell the others?”

“Well,” Jeonghan said, very pointedly, “You could probably tell all of them aside from Soonyoung, because you know how he is, the whole town would know before the next sunrise, but if you’re not telling him then you can’t tell Seokmin because Seokmin would tell him, and if you’re not telling Seokmin then you can’t tell Minghao because Minghao would tell Seokmin, and so would Mingyu, so you can’t tell Mingyu. Do you see where this is going?”

Wonwoo found himself rolling his eyes, grinning, “I get it, I get it. Why are _you_ allowed to know, though?”

“No one told me,” Jeonghan almost winked, “I figured it out myself.”

“Of course you did,” Wonwoo exhaled in fond exasperation.

“Naturally. You won’t tell anyone else then?”

Wonwoo worried at his lip with his teeth, still not entirely convinced by the reasoning, “I don’t want any of them to ever risk their lives for mine if it means they will get bitten in place of me, you know? I would never be able to live with myself if that happened.”

“Very bold of you to assume they would save your life.”

Wonwoo threw a pillow at Jeonghan, Seungcheol’s pillow, “Shut up. I’m serious.”

Jeonghan caught it easily, it was a gentle throw, meek, “So am I. The more people who know, the more at risk you are. You know how we talked about being unable to even attempt to analyse you to make a cure because we don’t have any of the medical equipment for it? That doesn’t mean that no one else alive doesn’t either. Someone could try and kidnap you to harvest your organs for all we know.”

“No one is harvesting my organs,” Wonwoo announced, staring in friendly disapproval. He was trying to keep a straight face, to retain the way he had been feeling for the last few days, the last few weeks, actually, but getting to talk to Jeonghan for this long had lifted his spirits more than he thought possible.

“Because they don’t know,” Jeonghan pointed, gesticulating marking the end of the sentence and pronouncing his logic superior, and then he rose to his feet, “Case closed. Don’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t,” Wonwoo laxly promised, “Are you leaving?”

Jeonghan hummed an affirmation, slinging his rucksack over one shoulder, “I heard the door, and I have patrol tonight with Joshua.”

As much as Wonwoo wanted to make a quip about how Jeonghan should remember that he is supposed to keep a lookout for straggling walkers and not see how many outposts they can defile in one evening, he was stuck on the first part of Jeonghan’s announcement.

Seungcheol was home.

“I’ll see you around,” Jeonghan said, heading to leave the room, and he stopped in his tracks when Seungcheol clearly beat him to the door handle from the other side, stepping out of the way, “After you.”

Wonwoo turned away from the sight of them shuffling around each other, swallowing thickly, loathing that his first reaction to Seungcheol now was to look the other way and yet his heart swelled all the same, years of love not so soon relinquished. 

Some more words were exchanged at the door, ones Wonwoo didn’t care for, the niceties of farewell, and then there was an unforgettable presence at his side once more, perched on the edge of the bed, though higher up than where Jeonghan was. Wonwoo’s arm twitched when Seungcheol gently reached to take his hand from where it was resting at his side, even he saw the motion in his peripheral, and Seungcheol sighed, dejected and forlorn, “You know I’d never hurt you.”

Wonwoo quirked a brow at him, prompting further dialogue, “Okay, that wasn’t the best choice of words. You’re the eloquent one. I never meant to hurt you, is what I meant.”

Heart constricting, Wonwoo brought his free hand up to press his fist into his chest as though that would stop the pain, blowing out a breath, “I can’t keep doing this.”

“Doing what?” Seungcheol queried, tone the kindest Wonwoo had heard in a while. Seungcheol had been skirting around him since he had woken up but it had struck Wonwoo as nothing but selfishly felt pity, not compassion, despite what Seungcheol had intended it to be, but they hadn’t escaped further argument, either. Wonwoo had still needed Seungcheol to help him drink, to eat, to go to the bathroom and to have a shower and everything else Wonwoo could dream of doing. He couldn’t function without Seungcheol’s help, not until recently.

Conversation had evaded them for a while. They simply existed together in a tense silence, one that Wonwoo believed had spurred on his recovery as he was so desperate to walk out of the room to avoid it that he was elated when he finally gained the strength to do so, and also heartbroken that he deemed himself in need of an escape from the so-called love of his life. 

Seungcheol had been trying again, Wonwoo had noticed, to speak to him, to break those silences with menial conversation about what he did that day or what he would do the next, clearly avoiding the issue between them, but that wasn’t what Wonwoo wanted him to do. He wanted it to be resolved, wanted to talk but couldn’t find the words to describe how he felt anymore, and so the toxic silence was better than a miscommunication, he had decided; maybe that wasn’t the right decision, who knows.

“I don’t know,” Wonwoo admitted, drawing his lips into a thin line, gaze dropping to where Seungcheol had linked their fingers together, gold kissing gold, “I don't know how you make me feel anymore.”

“I betrayed your trust,” Seungcheol proclaimed, and he wasn’t wrong, but Wonwoo’s lips parted in shock at the certainty to the words, the thought that had clearly gone into them - he hadn’t been the only one trapped in his mind for the last few weeks, it would seem.

“You did,” Wonwoo nodded, air like ice as he drew it into his lungs despite the heat of summer waning with the coming sunset, “But I love you, and you did it out of love.”

“Oh, thank God,” Seungcheol positively deflated, causing Wonwoo much confusion.

“What?”

“You still love me.”

“Of course I do, you idiot,” Wonwoo tutted, wanted to move to give Seungcheol a playful swat in response but didn’t think they were there yet, still in a deadlock of conflicting principles, “I don’t love you for what you put me through, but I couldn’t stop loving you even if I tried.”

Maybe he had tried.

Seungcheol’s eyes were softer, posture much less stiff as though unburdened, but there was still something about him that told Wonwoo he knew he wasn’t forgiven, that this was just the start of what could be a resolution, “I love you too, if that means anything.”

“Does it mean anything?” Wonwoo asked out of genuine curiosity.

“I hope it does,” Seungcheol hazarded a smile, the corners of his lips rising timidly to present the tiniest hints of deep dimples.

Maybe it did.

━ᕕ━

Wonwoo was picking off as many as he could. It wasn’t easy, tracking a moving target down a scope, but it was a hell of a lot easier when that target happened to be a mass of five thousand soulless monsters; hard to miss, really. His task wasn’t quite so simple, however, as his unit was responsible for silencing those closest to the car that Seokmin was driving through the dusted dirt, Soonyoung hanging out of it like he was on some rollercoaster ride from hell, but they were managing. They all were. 

Hip bones digging into the floor, summer sun beating down on him harshly, Wonwoo was glad to have Seungcheol there to watch his six, as always. He would be lying if he said it wasn’t a bit distracting for a plethora of reasons, but getting distracted at a time like this wasn’t really an option to begin with, so Wonwoo quashed his own emotions and pulled the trigger like he was supposed to do.

It was a while into the chaos that he noticed something unusual, alarming, in fact, “They’re swerving.”

He couldn’t hear Seungcheol, earphones protecting his ears from the shots he fired, and Seungcheol should’ve been wearing some too, really, but he had to be the one to relay communications. He couldn’t hear Seungcheol, but Seungcheol could hear him. Casting a glance away from his scope, Wonwoo found Seungcheol to be peering through the binoculars at the fuss before he started barking into the walkie-talkie, signalling to Wonwoo that he should keep his focus on the task at hand, so he did.

It wasn’t until after the carnage that Wonwoo actually learned of what had happened, ears ringing despite the protection they had been given, body aching from lying down for so long with his elbows propped up. It was Seungcheol who told him, of course. A sniper had aimed for Seokmin and Soonyoung, attempted to off them even in the middle of their death run, and Wonwoo was sucked back to a month ago, back to when himself and Seungcheol were in the city that the horde had just ploughed through, back to when he found that photograph, writing scrawled on it.

**_‘They’re next.’_ **

Wonwoo staggered at the news, caught in place by Seungcheol before he could fall, and he couldn’t recall the last time he reacted so viscerally to something, breaking out in a cold sweat on the spot, eyes wide where they stared vacantly at the ground. He hadn’t forgotten about the photograph, didn’t think he ever would, but between the constant fear of turning into one of the monsters he has nightmares about and his war of emotions with Seungcheol, he hadn’t thought much of the threat, in all honesty. It could’ve been someone using the back of a photograph they happened across as a scrap piece of paper, could’ve been a joke, could’ve been Seokmin and Soonyoung themselves - but it wasn’t their handwriting - and it could’ve been serious.

It was very serious. 

“Is he okay?” Wonwoo heard someone ask, only vaguely able to discern them over the thumping of his own heart, the shallow intake of his own breathing. 

“He’s okay,” Seungcheol said, though it was clear he didn’t think that, and Wonwoo only just realised he had his hands perched on Seungcheol’s shoulders, nails digging in for purchase. 

More words were said, each and every one of them going over Wonwoo’s head, and he didn’t want to be back here, in this muted darkness stricken with panic. Maybe he passed out at some point or simply neglected to make the memory of the trip back in the first place, but he was at home before he knew it, gently lowered to a seat on the sofa with Seungcheol crouched in front of him, “You’re okay.”

Seungcheol had said that already, Wonwoo knew that much, could reach and remember such a mantra from moments ago, and it helped, it always had done, “Are they okay?”

Seungcheol didn’t comment on the broken manner of Wonwoo’s speech, which Wonwoo was grateful for, “Seokmin and Soonyoung? They’re fine. You know them, they’re probably having sex in a tree as we speak.”

Wonwoo laughed at that, a little delirious, but the bile was gone from the back of his throat and he felt like he could breathe again in the silence that followed, taking comfort from Seungcheol’s presence alone. Talking was something they had been doing a lot of over the last week, each refusing to let the other, and themselves, suffer in silence any longer. It helped that the others had started to notice that something was wrong between them when Wonwoo started to resume working in the town again, even if he was doing a lot less than he was before for the time being.

Wonwoo confided in Soonyoung without telling him the whole truth, just that Seungcheol had done something to wrong him and that he didn’t know what to do about it. Soonyoung was of no help from a romantic standpoint, so in love with Seokmin that Cupid’s arrow had pierced through their hearts in tandem and nailed them to the wall, but he was still an excellent listener and very good at pointing out Wonwoo’s contradictions in his own logic when he was too emotionally fatigued to notice them himself. He could talk to Jeonghan about it without worrying about a slip of the tongue, but it was nice, in a way, to talk to someone who didn’t know the severity of the situation, that Wonwoo had pressed the muzzle of his gun to his head with the intention to pull the trigger and that Seungcheol had forcibly stopped him, because Soonyoung made it sound so simple without knowing all the intricacies and it helped to see it from that perspective.

Undoubtedly, Seungcheol was talking to someone else about it too, perhaps Jeonghan, or maybe Jihoon, but Wonwoo hadn’t asked. All that mattered was that they were talking about it, to each other and to others, and they were working things out, desperately trying to set their differences aside to rekindle what they once had. It was working, but it was slow, and some days were easier than others.

Saying that this was one of the easier days made Wonwoo huff a laugh at the misery that must be his life if such a day could be called easy, and Seungcheol raised a brow at him, “What?”

“Nothing,” Wonwoo mumbled, blinking slowly, fatigue of the hunt clinging to his frame, and found it odd that he would feel content if not for the way his heart was still racing, body refusing to calm down despite the absence of danger, “Just tired.”

“Can you walk?”

“Only one way to find out,” Wonwoo hauled himself up, felt the world try to spin him out of orbit, and landed his hands on Seungcheol’s shoulders again with another puff of laugher tinged with nervous energy, a bit crazed. “No.”

When Seungcheol hoisted him up, bridal style, it was so easy to convince himself that everything was fine. They weren’t patching up their relationship, weren’t still wary of saying the wrong thing or making the wrong move, but they were just heading up to their bedroom together as they had done thousands of times before.

It was so easy for Wonwoo to fall when Seungcheol set his feet on the ground next to the bed, to blame it on wayward gravity, so simple for Seungcheol to follow him since they were still holding each other, after all, and maybe it was just residual adrenaline draining away to leave a fuzzy haze of swirling desires, the desire to celebrate victory, to run from those who had attacked them and two of their own, to break down this wall between them and go back to how they were before, to reclaim the best thing in their lives, the thing that kept them going even through this apocalypse, but it was just so _easy_ for their eyes to slip shut and for their lips to meet at last. 

Wonwoo experienced the most extreme relief of his life followed by the deepest dread when Seungcheol’s tongue swirled with his own, and he pushed Seungcheol away, kept him at arm's length, his own horror massively outshining Seungcheol’s confused hurt, “What’s wrong? Do you not want to?”

Words were failing Wonwoo, lips trembling, tears brimming in his eyes because how could they both be so fucking _stupid_ to even do such a thing, mindless or not, coming down from a high or not, and he didn’t deserve to lean into the warmth of Seungcheol’s hand at his cheek as his tears were wiped away but he did, and he screwed his eyes shut, took a trembling breath, and told Seungcheol what he had realised a second too late.

“I’ve infected you, haven’t I?”

**Author's Note:**

> if zombie bites cause infection...then a kiss...who knows :/ do you agree with what cheol did? do you agree with wonu being mad at him? lots of conflict ! very unlike anything else i have written ! so feedback would be lovely !
> 
> woncheol are my guilty pleasure ship so i am just so glad i FINALLY finished one (1) of my woncheol wips and i hope you enjoyed!! please do leave me a kudos if you did and a comment would mean the world :] i want to keep expanding this universe but not if there's no interest ;A;
> 
> thank you for reading <3


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